Index of Sermon Topics 20 Feb- 4 May ‘95’

[zoFebruary-4 May z95z?] [Chestq Pa 73

While at Crow King used vanous methods for colkctzng and organizing homiletic mataal Wnting on a senes of f i titled ‘‘Topic, Text and Subject Index,” he skctchrs s m n zdeas, notang bzblzcal texts and other sources King probably m t t , thse notes in 195 I , as he r e f k to courses h took at Crow dunng tlw spnng of that ycar

Matt 7 12’

Hosea 1 io2

“The Rule Of Life” (To be prepared) “Our Uncivllized Ciwlizahon” “What is Enough”

1 Economic secunty is not 2 Family is not enough 3 Justice not enough 4 We can only be filled

“When Religon Becomes too tolerant” Brahminism has often been too tolerant It has

tolerated magc and all manner of superstitions Far from attemphng to reform the cruel social injustices of the caste system, it has found a moral jushficahon for them The relipon has founded no church, it has developed no social achvlties, it has cared little to serve humanity Sdvahon is to be won by inner meditation by oneself One is taught to conceive himself in an intellectual manner to be idenhcal wth one’s neighbor and love him as oneself, but little mohvation is afforded to incite one to go achvely to a neighbor’s matenal assistance in any manner

1 “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men \hould do to you, do ye even so to them for this i s the law and the prophets ”

z “For they shall eat, and not have enough they shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase because they have left off to take heed to the Lord ”

3 William Kelley M’nght, A Sfudal’s Phtlosqbhy ofRelzgzon (New York Macmillan, igzz), pp 78-79 “On the contrary, the defects in Brahminism have been senous enough It has been only too tolerant It has for th is reason fai1l.d to be a reforming religon It has tolerated magc and all manner of degrading superstitlons Far from attempting to reform the cruel social injustices of the caste system, it has found a moraljustlficaoon for them This religon has founded no church, it has developed no social actiwtles, it has cared little to seive hiimanity Salwhon is to be won by inner meditation by oneself One is taught to conceive himself in an intellectual manner to be identlral wth one’s neighbor and love him as one- self, but little motivation IS &Forded to incite one to go actively to a neighbor’s matenal assistance in any manner” This book WJS on the syllabus for kng’s spnng I 95 I class Philosophy of Religon wth George W Daws (Bibliographv and term assignments, Philosophy of Religon and Advanced Philosophy of Reli- gon, z8November 1950-4 May 1951) “ 3

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“The Need for an Agressive Liberalism” 20 Feb- 4May 1951 As a basis see, W K Wnght, A Students Philosophv of

Relipon, p 83,84 This is a good article to w t e Matt 7 21 j

Rev. 3 207

Heb 5 ,is Heb 1 3 8 ~

“The Quintessence of Religon” (See notes of Philosophy of Rel. I)6 The Courtesy of God (God never forces his wdl upon an indiwdual On Being Called of God to preach “The Permenence o f Chnst”

The quest of the ages has been to find something un- changeable Man’s truth is always limited by the Zeitgeist, But the truth which Chnst revealed is eternal l o

Every man must declare war on himself He must struggle to conque his low ewl and selfish nature and subject it to the higher nature Every man is capable of becoming more that he is “I look upon man as a fragment of the future ” Nietsche”

“The war of Spint”

23rd Psm’“ “The Cosmic Shephard

4 Wnght , A Studenti Phzlosophy of Relzgzon, p 84 “If religous liberals hope to preserve their more sci- enthc conceptions of God and their emphasis upon the moral values of toleration, social semce and progress, thev cannot permit the masses in church and synagogue to go on unenlightened The future of relig~on wlll never be assured in this country so long as more intelligent worshippers are indifferent to the obligauon upon ;dl true Chnsbans and Jews to make their places of worship frequented by all clases and strata of socit ty ”

5 “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kmgdom of heaven, but he that doeth the wll of my Father which i s in heaven ”

6 In Kmg’s class notes for Philosophy of Religon, he wrote “What i s the fifth essence (quintes sence) of religon i e its highest essence The quesuon anses which i s most important belief in God or loyalty to the highest ideals It seems that wthJesus thegedofhumanitv was more important than the- oretlcal belief m God SO that the quintessence of religion is devotlon to the highest ideals ” k n g also noted, “If loyalty to God does not make for the devotion to highest ideals in our lives then he might as well be dismissed” ( ZS November 1950- 15 February 195 1 I

7 “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I wll come in to him, and wdl sup wth him, and he w ~ t h me ”

8 “And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron ” g ‘yesus Chnst the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever”

i o “Zeitgeist” is a Gc m a n word refemng to the prevalent spint or ideas of a particular era 1 1 Kmg refers to philosopher Fnednch Nietzsche’s ohsenation “1 walk amongst men as the frag-

ments of the future that future which I contemplate” (Thus Spakrz Zaruthwtra, trans , Thomas Common [NewYork Macmillan, 19161, p 168)

i z ”The Lord i s niy shepherd I shall not want He maketh me to Iie down in green pastures he lead- eth me beside the still waters He restoreth my soul he leadeth me in the paths of nghteousness for his name’s sake Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 1 wdl fear no evll for thou art wth me, t h y rod and thy stafF they comfort me Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies thou anointest my head wth oil, my cup runneth over Surely goodness and mercy shall follow m e all the days of my hfe, and I w11 dwell in the house of the Lord for ever”

“5

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20 Feb-

4 May ‘951 This Psalm stress the fact that men has companion in his struggle for good God and the universe are on the side of nght When this Psalm came the world was made a better place in which to live

“A Plea For Goodness” Cunousity: Vice or Virtue {See the Story of The Burning Bush in Exodus)14 “Beyond Good Deeds” It is not only the deed but the motwe See Spurner, Chapter 216

The Sin Of Nationa1isml8 (see Spurner, chaptr 3 pp 56F) l9

“Irrelevant Goodness” (attempt to show that there were probably io good men in Sodom, but that there goodness was irrelevant ) “God’s Judgment upon Amenca” (The sin of Amenca is that it combinds the pnde of wrtue (which was Israels defect), (wth the pnde of power, which was Babylons defect

Acts 11 2413

(Matt 23 25 Matt 15 1g}15 Isaiah 40 15,17”

Gen 18 23 Fzo Gen 18 23F

13 “For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith and much people was added unto

14 Exodus 3 1-4 17 15 Matthew 23 25 “Woe unto you, scnbes and Phansees, hypocntes’ for ye make clean the outside

of the cup and of the platter, but wthin they are full of extortion and excess ” Matthew 15 i g “For out of the heart proceed em1 thoughts, murders, adultenes, fornications, thefts, false wtness, blasphemies ”

16 Kmg refers to a chapter in PmerfwActzon An Intmducfton to Chmtzan Ethzcs titled “Conflict w th the Phansees,” in which William A Spurner argues “Jesus attacked the ideal that a man’s goodness or ngh- teousness is determined by what he does While it is true that a really good man should and wll do good deeds and that ‘by your fruits ye shall be known,’ it is not necessanly true that he who does a sc-called good deed is actually a good man” (Spurner, PowerfmActzon An Introduction to Chmtzan Efhzcs [NewYork Charles Scnbner’s Sons, 19481, pp 8-9) Kenneth Smith assigned this book for his course Chnstianity and Society (Syllabus, Chnsuanity and Society, 2 0 February-4 May 195 1 )

17 Isaiah 40 15- 17 “Behold, the natlons are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing And Lebanon is not sufiicient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offenng All natlons before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity”

18 For a developed sermon w t h this theme, see Kmg, “The False God of Nationalism,” 1 2 July 1953, pp i 32- 133 in this volume

19 Spurner noted in a chapter ofPowerforActzon titled “War and Peace” “Nations are subject to laws of nght and wrong as well as its indimduals No nation or group of nations can say that they are God- the determiners of destlny, the final answers to all the problems of life Nations come and go, me and fall, but llfe wth its purposes, meanings, creative abilities, nght and wrong remains ‘Behold, the nauons are as a drop of a bucket All the natlons before Him (God) are as nothing and they are counted to Him less than nothing and vanity’ (Isaah 40 15, 17) Natlonalism is therefore a colossal expression of col- lectlve sin, the pnde of man at its height” (PmerfiActzm, p 58)

2 0 Genesis 18 23-33 tells ofAbraham bargaining wth God to save the city of Sodom, a site of sin and depramty God agreed to refmn from destroylng Sodom lfeven only ten nghteous people could be found

2 1 Babylon was a Mesopotamian empire that conquered Israel in the sixth century BCE

the Lord ”

i 16

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Gen 322

Gen 3

Romans 3 2 2 3 2tZ4

“The Fall of Man” 20 Feb-

4 May 1951 (Show an indiwdual fall The conception of ongmal sin receives validity in the light of the universality of sin

(Take the story of the fall of man Here man was in a per- fect enwronment Yet he sinned Man may have the best of enwronment, but unless he has something of God in he can change the perfect enwronment into literal hell

(See Folder on Chnshan Social Phi 11)25

All me are united in their separahon from God We are all

“Beyond a Good Enwronment”

“The Unlimited Chnst”

“Man is unity in a great separahon”

sinners (our unity) needing to be reconciled wth God (our separation) “A Peace the passeth All Under~tanding’”~

Text “Peace I leave wth you, my peace I g7ve unto you 26

“Religon does not aim to save us from the troubles and reverses of life, these came alike to all, but +A& it aims to s u p port us under them and to teach us the dimne purpose in them Not outward prospenty, but this inward calm is the great legacy of the Chnshan Men wonder how God’s true child can keep his heart in such a rest amid the most distract- ing circumstanses-the answer is-“Peace I leave wth thee ” See Knudson’s RTOT 289 27

Ephesians ‘4 62s God transcendent and Immanent Ephesians 6 1 1FZg The Chnshan Warnor Lord’s Prayer Our Father

2 2 Genesis 3 recounts Eve’s temptation by the serpent, her temptatlon ofAdam to eat from the tree of knowledge and their banishment by God from the Garden of Eden

23 Dunng the spnng of 1951, Kmg was enrolled in Kenneth L Smith’s Chnstian Social Philosophy 11, a course that surveyed nineteenthcentury philosophy and the nse of the social gospel Although Kmg’s notes do not mentlon “the Unlimited Chnst” specifically, they do address the role of Chnstianity in society (Kmg, Class notes, Chnstlan Social Philosophy 11, 20 February-4 May I 95 i )

24 “Even the nghteousness of God, which is by faith ofJesus Chnst, unto all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, Beingjusti- fied freely by his grace through the redemptlon that is in ChnstJesus ”

25 Cf Philippians4 7 26 John 1427

27 Albert C Knudson, TheReligiow Teaching of the Old Testament (NewYork Abingdon Press, i918), p 289 “It i s good to know that our suffenngs may be a tnal of our fruth, a test of our nghteousness, that they may in the prowdence of God be wcanous and redemptive, that they have a disciplinary value, and that they wdl ultimately gwe way to a happier future, but it is better stdl to have a wsion of God so rap turous that the suffenngs of the present lose their stlng, and life is permitted to go on in unruffled peace

28 “One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all ” 2 9 Ephesians 6 1 1 -1 6 includes the command to “put on the whole annour of God” to engage in a

spintual battle against the dew1 “7

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4 May ‘951

Acts ig 2S2

see Abingdon Commentary 1 64.S0 Sermon On Freedom Of Will Text Choose ye This Day When ye shall serveSi The Relevance of the Holy Spint

Most people have either forgotten that there is such a concept or they have a misconcepaon of it It remains true, however, that this is one of the most important doctnnes in the Chnshan religon

(I) It stresses the fact that God did not limit his revelanon to one penod (e g biblical hme) God is revealing himself now (2) It stresses the immanense of God This is needed in the face of much modem theology which speak of the total “otherness” of God Quote Tennerson (Closer than hands)33 (3) It stresses the fact that God is continually working through history

Matt 5 “Seeing God ” Blessed are the pure in hearts4

Seeing God is a matter of the heart and not the head The pracace of religon must be substituted for argument about it As the poem says,

I t were n o t hard, we think, to serve Him,

If he would stand wth that gaze intense

Ifwe might look on that face most tender, The brow where the stars are turned to splendour, Might catch the light of His smile so sweet, And mew the marks of His hands a n d feet,

I t were n o t hard, we think, to serve Him,

I t were n o t hard, He says, to see Him,

“He that doeth the wdl of heaven, To him shall knowledge a n d sight be gwen ” While fo r His presence we sit repining,

If we could only see1

Burning into o u r bodily sense,

How loyal we should bel

If we could only seer

If we would only serve

30 Kmg refers to The Abongdon Bob& Commentary, which states “Here it was that Jesus transcended the 0 T He conceived of God as Father and as Father of all men in a way that rendered obsolete all earlier natlonalistic, paruculanstic, legalistlc, and royahstlc concephons of him” (Fredenck Carl Eiselen, Edwn Lews, and Davld G Downey, eds , The Abrngdm Blbk Commalnry [New York Abingdon Press, lgzg], P 164)

31 Cf Joshua 24 15 32 “He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed2 And they said unto him,

We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost ” 33 Kmg may be refernng to a stanza from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Higher Pantheism”

(1869) “Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spint w th Spint can meet- / Closer is He than breath- ing, and nearer than hands and feet ” ’ ’ *

34 Matthew5 8

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Never we see His countenance shining They who toil where His reapers be The glow of his smile may alway see, And their faith can never swerve It were not hard, He says, to see Him, If we would only serve

See McCracken’s Quesuons People Ask35

“Why Does God Hide Himself Y~~

Sermon How does one acquire Religous Expenences

When we deal wth the finite we can be plain and even somewhat certain But as soon as we touch the fnnge of the infinite there is

A deep beyond the deep And a heigh beyond the height, And our heanng i s not heanng And our seeing IS not sightI3’

AFm CSKC Sermon file, folder i I 8, “Sermon Matenal ”

3June ig j i

35 The preceding poem is quoted from RobertJ McCracken’s sermon “How Does One Acquire Reli- glous Expenence?” which was the fint sermon in his collecuon Qwstzons PeqkAsk (New York Harper & Brothers, i g5 i ) , pp i 1-19 RobertJ McCracken (1904-1973) succeeded Harry Emerson Fosdick as pastor of New York’s kvenide Church He served from 1946 to i 967 and used his pulpit to speak out against racial injusuce and militansm

36 Kmg preached a sermon w~th this utle on 4 December I 955 at Dexter Avenue Bapust Church (see Kmg, “Why Does God Hide Himself’,” pp 241 -242 in this volume)

37 McCracken, “Why Does God Hide Himself’” “We can be plain, precise, specific while we are deal- ing wth what is finite, but as soon as we begm to touch the fnnge of the infinite there IS A deep beyond the deep,/And a height beyond the height,/And our heanng is not heanng,/And our seeing is not sight ” McCracken and Kmg quote Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Voice and the Peak” ( I 874) In his sermon file, k n g kept a copy of McCracken’s pamphlet “Why Does God Hide Himself>” 27 Apnl 1947

Sincerity Is Not Enough

Following hzs graduation fiom Cmzr in May 195 I , Kzngreturned to Atlanta for the summer and preached occasionally at Ebenezer when. he akltvtred a sermon shanng the t z t l e oJthefollowing handwntten outltne and bmf manuscript He argues for the importance of tntellzgence zn reltgzon and cautions “Ifsincenty u not [buttressed>]

zntelligence it can become the most [rumous] f i e in human nature ”

‘9 i Kmg’s announced sermon topic for 3 June I g j i was ”Sincenty Is Not Enough” (“Rev M L Kmg,

Sr On Leave From Ebenezer Baptist,” Aflanfa Dazly Wurld, 2 June I g j i )

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